[ajross]

Everyone is talking about fentanyl. The problem is that overdoses aren't "excess deaths", those show up in hospitals as real data. And they aren't enough to explain the kind of numbers we saw with covid. Surely fentanyl overdoses are a problem, and they get a bunch of coverage. But they absolutely aren't "the real story" behind the covid excess death numbers; that's just your priors arguing in your head.

[pclmulqdq]

Fentanyl overdoses and suicides are excess deaths in that they contribute to excess death numbers when they are higher than expected. They just don't account for the full number of excess deaths over the last few years - the lion's share is almost certainly from the virus.

[mitchdoogle]

This article about life expectancy specifically lists overdose deaths as a major contributor to decreased life expectancy

[ajross]

The comment I was responding to was positing that the covid "excess deaths" statistics (not the same thing as life expectancy measurements) were confounded by fentanyl overdoses. They are not.